Editor’s Note:  $150M of Sen Dela Cruz pork-barrel spending is contingent of the non-sensical belief that unnecessary DoE ‘Central Kitchens’ would magically cause more local food to be consumed in school cafeterias. 

Jan 9, 2026: $150M: Totally Useless DoE Kitchen to Serve up Dela Cruz Pork

Feb 5, 2026: DelaCruz Pork Kitchen Can be Killed off after $28M is Wasted on Phase 1

The State Auditor’s report below says otherwise:

Audit of the Department of Education’s Efforts to Meet Its Mandate to Incorporate Local Foods in School Meals

from Hawaii State Auditor, March, 2026

Chapter 1 Introduction

In 2021, the Legislature transferred the Farm to School Program from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Education (DOE or department) and gave DOE a Farm to School Coordinator position, a mandate, and a deadline: 10 percent of the total cost of school meals should come from local foods by January 1, 2025.1 That meant DOE had three school years (2021–2022; 2022–2023; and 2023–2024) to increase local food content in its school meals. In addition to mandating that 10 percent of the total food costs be from locally sourced products by 2025, the Legislature also required the department to increase spending on local products to 30 percent by 2030.

DOE did not meet the January 1, 2025 mandate, with the department reporting just 5.4 percent of the $82 million that it spent on food during School Year 2023–2024 was on “locally sourced food products.”2 We found that neither the Farm to School Program nor the mandate to increase the amount of local products in school meals was a department priority. The Farm to School Program has yet to adopt a strategic plan that defines its goals and guides its efforts to increase spending on local foods. In addition, the program has no policies and procedures to guide its activities. While the DOE Superintendent said that he had emphasized the importance of locally sourced food in discussions and meetings, he never conveyed that policy in writing. Cafeteria Managers at the various schools purchase the food for school meals, and while those we spoke with were generally aware of a goal to increase local ingredients, not all were aware of the specifics of the goal. But even if purchasing local had been clearly articulated and communicated as a priority to staff, Cafeteria Managers did not have the ability to carry out the policy. The DOE-approved product lists from which Cafeteria Managers purchased food and other ingredients for school meals did not make the distinction between local and imported, meaning Cafeteria Managers could not make an informed choice to buy local foods. 

According to DOE’s last four annual reports, the rate of locally sourced food usage has oscillated between 5 percent and 6.5 percent, with food service operations remaining essentially unchanged during that time period. 

While the department did hire a permanent Farm to School Coordinator in 2023, we found his activities lacked department support and were negligible. He described his position as being the leader of gathering information and making reports. But we found that this reporting was late, incomplete, inaccurate, and therefore, unreliable; as flawed as the information gathering and compiling may be, more concerning is that the reporting reflects the business-as-usual work of the department’s food service operations instead of the results of a deliberate, designed, and sustained effort to increase the usage of locally sourced products to meet the targets set by the legislature.

We also found that, in summer 2025, DOE released a plan to meet the additional goal of 30 percent by 2030, proposing a network of regional kitchens, with centralized food service operations that may allow DOE to prepare meals more efficiently. However, the department lacks the critical baseline data and research on which to build a strategic effort to increase the amount of local products; the plan is more aspirational than operational, lacking necessary details on how consolidating cafeteria meal preparation at regional kitchens will result in the department buying more local products necessary to meet the 2030 mandate. 

For instance, in its effort to reach its 30 percent goal by 2030, DOE hopes to identify and promote local sources for key products, “novel” crops such as rice, buckwheat, and arrowroot. However, it is questionable that the department will able to procure such new crops by 2030, or ever. According to an Associate Extension Agent at the University of Hawai‘i’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience we spoke with, Hawai‘i does not have the area for cultivation of small-grain crops. In addition, specialized equipment needed for harvesting would likely make the crops unprofitable.

Moreover, while both the 2025 and 2030 mandates are based on a percentage of total food costs, DOE does not have data about the cost of each component of the meals served at its schools. Without such data, the department is unable to determine what dishes or items (main entree, side of fruit, vegetable, roll, milk) and, specifically, what ingredients within those categories, provide the best opportunities to increase local food usage and spending. In addition, without concrete and current empirical data, the department does not know the range of local products currently available, the quantities necessary to meet the department’s menu needs, the farmers from whom the local items can be obtained, or the cost to incorporate more locally sourced products.

According to one food distributor, the department has not adequately researched the “food landscape” (i.e., identified farmers and their current products). “I feel like we are still researching the landscape … it’s been the same for almost 10 years, but it feels like [DOE] is expecting a different answer,” he said.

Without such data on the current states of local food availability and meal preparation, DOE’s upcoming efforts – which include the design and launch of new menus, a re-examination of the procurement laws and policies, and the creation of a comprehensive statewide plan for regional kitchens – are being developed in their own silos, missing the direction and coordination of a targeted strategy. Without an integrated, targeted strategy – and the data and analysis to support it – results will continue to be unguided and left up to happenstance. …

Chapter 2

Finding 1: The Department of Education’s efforts to increase the percentage of locally sourced products in  its school meals to meet the legislatively mandated goal of 10 percent by 2025 were without structure, direction,  or consequential actions

Finding 2: While the Department of Education’s plan to develop regional kitchens may allow for the incorporation of more local foods in school meals, it lacks essential details to support the department’s contention that it will increase its spending on locally sourced products to  30 percent by 2030 …

read … Full Report

FOOTNOTES

1. In 2025, the Legislature rescinded the requirement that 10 percent of the food served in school meals be locally sourced by January 1, 2025 to resolve discrepancies between the locally sourced food benchmarks for DOE and other departments. Act 137 (SLH 2025) took effect “upon its approval” on May 30, 2025, five months after the department’s deadline had passed.

2. The department’s calculation of food purchases excludes public charter schools.

COVERAGE:

ASD: Farm to School program leaves student lunches "essentially unchanged," audit finds

CB: Push To Feed Hawaiʻi Kids More Local Food Is 'Structural Disaster' - Honolulu Civil Beat